Give Us Your Best Excerpt: A Peek at THE COUGAR’S PAWN

Hey, hoppers! Today, I’m sharing an excerpt from a spanking new release–my shapeshifter romance The Cougar’s Pawn. It just came out yesterday, so this little snippet hasn’t been splashed all over the Internet just yet.

To set the scene for you, I’ve got a kidnapper Were-cougar and his abductee witch trying to have a “conversation” through a locked bathroom door.

*~*

A knock on the bathroom door jostled Ellery from her lazy psychic pleas to her cat. “What?” she asked the door.

“I need you to come out,” Mason said.

“Only one bathroom here?” She shifted to get the bony part of her butt off of a particularly uncomfortable jut of the tub ledge. “Tough. We’re out here in the middle of nowhere. I doubt if anyone would care if you took a leak outside.”

He made some noise that was half groan and half snarl. The last time she’d heard anything close to it, she’d been in the crew cab of an F-250 during a music festival in Wilmington. There was some shagging going on, and not of the swing dancing variety.

Werewolves were great lays, but made unreliable boyfriends. She sighed yet again. How could she possibly date human men now knowing what she could have? She wanted what Gail had, but that was impossible. There was only one Claude and all of his brothers who weren’t psychopaths were married.

“I need to … run an errand,” Mason said.

No, that pause in his sentence wasn’t mysterious at all. “So go.” She peered at the small window over the tub and wondered if it were merely decorative. If she could work out the necessary parkour moves to get up to it, she might be able to squeeze through to the outside. She wouldn’t survive long in the desert without supplies, but if she could get to the road, perhaps she could flag someone down.

“You’re coming with me,” he said.

“I don’t think so.”

“Alas, but you are going with me.”

Damn, that window was small. The only way she’d be able to fit through it was if she got naked and greased herself up with Crisco.

He tried the doorknob.

Locked, of course. She wasn’t stupid.

“I can pretty easily rip this door off its hinges. I work with wood for a living. I can fix the mess I make, but I’d rather not create more work for myself.”

“Sorry to inconvenience you.” She opened the cabinet beneath the sink, hoping to find a metal nail file, scissors, or some other sharp object she could use as a weapon. Her magic was much stronger when she was outdoors and in her element. She could probably give him another little shock, but didn’t think she had the juice at the moment.

“Do me a favor and don’t be a brat.”

Oh, she could be a brat. She was bratty on purpose sometimes. Made the sex better, assuming the male on the receiving end knew how to deal with it. “Hey, you kidnapped me, buddy, not the other way around.”

“My name is Mason, not buddy. I’m going to give you until the count of three to unlock the door.”

That had never worked when her mother had said it, and it sure as shit wasn’t going work coming from him, either. Her mother had always given up, and Ellery would traipse out of her room hours later. If Momma had been a better witch, she could have gotten the door open without fuss. Ellery would probably never know what her parents were capable of, if anything. Damned shame.

“One,” he said.

No toiletry kit to be found, but she did find a bottle of baby wash that was already half-used. She figured someone with a kid had visited. Gail and Claude kept stuff like that in their guest bathroom in case their niece slept over. That was a rare occurrence since Claude and his brothers lived within a two-minute walk of each other, but sometimes, kids just wanted to sleep under someone else’s roof for a change.

“Two.”

She closed the cabinet door and tried the drawers. She pulled out the first aid kit—her heart racing—and popped the lid. “Dammit.” No scissors. No nothing, really, save for gauze and some expired ointment.

His lack of preparedness appalled her professional nurse sensibilities.

“Three.”

She returned the kit to the drawer, sat on the toilet, and crossed her arms.

The door groaned, as if Mason had put all his weight against it. “Ellery.” His voice was firm, yet pleading.

She’d like that combination from a man if he were naked. She didn’t want to think about Mason being naked, though, because she did intend on being rescued. No use harboring fantasies she had no intentions of acting on. She studied her ragged nails.

“Fine. I guess I’ll be fixing a door while you sleep tonight.” With one forceful collision, Mason shoved the door through its frame.

Ellery gaped at the runnels in the frame where the screws ripped through.

He propped the door against the tub, wiped the dust off his hands onto his jeans, picked her up, and tossed her over his shoulder.

She had a love-hate relationship with that view of his ass.

“I gave you until three,” he said.

“I’m not going to make it easy for you, cat.”

“Try to shock me again, and I’ll have you sleeping in a cold bath tonight, witch.”

She probably couldn’t shock him again even if she wanted to. She hadn’t eaten, hadn’t slept well in days, and just didn’t have the mojo. He didn’t need to know that, though.